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August 14, 2007

G119: Red Sox 2, Devil Rays 1

It's a shame -- all those fans who leapt off the Tobin the other day missed a great game.

Lester opened with three balls and a walk, but settled down quickly. Four strikeouts in the first two innings. Excellent curveball and changeup. He allowed only two hits, both in the fourth, when a sac fly brought in a run for the Rays. Lester's line: 7-2-1-1-4, 97.

Kazmir (6-4-0-3-8, 94) kept the Sox off the board for six innings. The team had no real rally until the bottom of the ninth.

Al Reyes got a gift strikeout of Manny (the pitch was both low and inside). Lowell crushed a high 2-0 fastball to deep left to tie the game 1-1. Youkilis was caught looking (on an actual strike three) before Varitek lined a ground-rule double (7-pitch AB) into the right field corner. Crisp (another 7-pitch AB) lined a single to right field. Young's throw from right was weak and up the first base line and Tek slid in safely with the game-winner.

Jon Lester will make his first start at Fenway Park in almost a year (August 18, 2006 against the Yankees).

After a strong performance against Cleveland on June 23, Lester has slumped: four runs in 6.2 innings (Tampa), four runs in five innings (Seattle) and five runs in 3.1 innings (Angels). "For some reason, the last couple of starts, I've been getting away from fastball command on strike one and it's really hurt me."

Julio Lugo is 10-for-20 in his last five games, with three doubles and six RBIs. In his last 11 games, he's hitting .378 (17-for-45).

Kazmir has allowed only one run in his last 19 innings. ... Tampa Bay is 2-17 at Fenway since July 19, 2005. ... Boston has 44 games to play -- 11 of them are against the Devil Rays.

Notice they played "Can't Wait One Minute More" by CIV as the intro to the game? That dude from CIV was in Judge, who covered that Blitz song, and Blitz was in the Oi scene, influenced by the Cockney Rejects who started when they heard "God Save the Queen" by the Sex Pistols.

NESN is totally on to my "Lester looks like Sid Vicious" thing. Totally.

Boss: I'm going to get right to the point. It has come to my attention that you and the cleaning woman have engaged in sexual intercourse on the desk in your office. Is that correct?

George: Who said that?

Boss: She did.

George: Was that wrong? Should I have not done that? I tell you I gotta plead ingnorance on this thing because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that that sort of thing was frouned upon, you know, cause I've worked in a lot of offices and I tell you people do that all the time.

Listened to the last few on XM, Boston feed. I guess that quote you mentioned in the Rizzo post about being able to lie on the radio was proven tonight; they said that the Yook K in the 9th was "ankle high" and worse than the Manny K.

Two day games tomorrow! We could be 6 up by dinner time. I'm gonna do that thing that can be annoying, but bear with me: After tomorrow, let's go cons. and say we're still 5 up. Between then and the Yanks series, each team has two 4-game series and a 3. If both teams split the four-gamers (ours against LA and Chi, theirs both against Detroit), and we get 2 of 3 from Tampa and they lose 2 of 3 to LA, we're 6 up going into a 3-gamer against the Yanks. Meaning even if they take 2, we're still 5 up.

That's kind of like the middle-of-the-road result. I figure we end up better off than that. But even if all the games go like that, we're in good shape. But hopefully Detroit can pound the Yanks in those 8. And they do a west coast trip while we don't.

Also, Tim, it was Phil Rizzuto, not Frank Rizzo:) Don't make me come down there for you either, tough guy!